What to know
Castles & Crowns, seems to have the potential to be a very comprehensive guide to help game masters (GMs henceforth) flesh out all the details that are needed to build a kingdom or any other sovereign realm. In the preview graciously provided by Kobold Press, there were wonderful tables for rolling up random ruler traits, ideals, and more. Even if you leave the dice out of the equation, it is full of helpful ideas that GMs can use to help build a monarch. It being compatible with 5E D&D as well as Kobold Press’ new Tales of the Valiant system makes it easy for most GMs to understand.
Me Personally
From what I have seen from the preview material, Kobold Press has once again put a well written aid for GMs that may be struggling with world building. While I love illustrious vocabulary myself, I think they could have simplified it a little. The use of some rather archaic words is a minor put off for me. Mostly because it hurts my ego just a touch to have to google the definition of a word when writing a hooked/bird-like nose would have sufficed. If the price point per page of usable information is reasonable, I would have no issue with purchasing this guide to have on hand should my need arise in my GMing endeavors.
Where to find it
The Kickstarter campaign is currently live. It will close on October 4th 2023. The different pledge levels are in line with your typical Kickstarter price point with my only pricing contention being $29 for the pdf version. However $49 for hardcover plus pdf seem fairly reasonable. Albeit I have not seen the full product so take all of what is written here with the usual grain of salt.
If you are interested in more, here’s the link to the Kickstarter:
Thanks,
– Marcus